In this blog, I’ve regularly recounted the multiple failures of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Yes, the very same one the U.S. has invested nearly a billion dollars in financing on Israel’s behalf. In a fraud that is all too common for complex U.S. weapons systems, a product fulfills a political purpose and despite its operational failure continues being purchased and supported. Iron Dome gives Israelis a false sense of protection and security that is fueled by false claims by the IDF and the system’s manufacturer. As a result, the millions keep coming while the system doesn’t improve.
This was evident yesterday as Iron Dome fired upon a purported missile that threatened Israel. The only problem: there was no missile. Iron Dome mistook fireworks (Hebrew) shot off to celebrate Bashar al-Assad’s election “victory” for enemy missiles. When IDF personnel detected the mistake they destroyed the missiles so they wouldn’t cause injuries to civilians. So we have a massively expensive, “sophisticated” weapons system that can’t tell the difference between a cherry bomb and a missile. Is it possible the U.S. can spend $1-billion on a product so shoddy? And no one will be held accountable? And Israelis will continue to be snookered into sleeping soundly in the belief they are protected.Buffer